The present invention relates to a device for receiving, directing and dropping containers such as bottles and the like, in particular for automatic rearranging machines, which is provided with automatic means for directing the said container, arranged inside it.
It is known in the technical sector relating to the filling and packaging of containers that there exists the need to perform a preliminary operation involving rearrangement of said containers in order to ensure that the downstream filling machines receive containers which are all correctly directed with their neck and/or opening directed upwards.
This rearrangement is performed by means of so-called rotary rearranging machines which must be provided with devices designed to receive said containers individually from a hopper containing them in a random manner and subsequently drop them, all directed in the same manner, with the mouth upwards, onto the belt for removing and transporting them to the filling machine. Numerous examples of embodiment of said sorting and straightening devices associated with dropping chutes have been described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,650,368, DE-26 51 495 and DE-34 13 234.
These devices, however, are based on co-operation with an annular disk fixed to the machine and supporting the container up to a predefined angular position where the disk is interrupted so as to allow the container to fall.
In addition to the need for a fixed disk, the sorting devices of the known type cannot be easily adapted to the different shapes or sizes of the containers to be straightened, making it necessary to change the sorting device and/or the dropping chute associated with it, even when there is only a small variation in the said shape or size.
The technical problem which is posed, therefore, is that of providing a device for receiving and dropping containers contained randomly inside hoppers of rearranging machines, which is able to perform automatically also directing thereof, once they have been arranged inside the device.
Within the context of this problem a further requirement is that the device should be able to be easily applied to machines of the known type tangentially with respect thereto and be able to increase the possibility of straightening containers of different sizes without the need for changing the sorting device.
These technical problems are solved according to the present invention by a device for receiving, directing and dropping containers arranged randomly inside hoppers of rearranging machines and the like, which is formed by at least two side walls and by a back wall and comprises automatic rotating means for directing the container, which are arranged inside the device and extend in a substantially transverse direction with respect thereto, which means may be rotationally actuated by means of associated actuators so as to cause dropping of the container present inside the device, directed in a predefined manner.